After Maggotzilla terrorized the Santa Monica Pier and the nearby city, the clean-up crews had spent days collecting debris and dragging it all to a junkyard. Even what was still partly intact had to be taken away for safety concerns, and nothing was ever reclaimed after Celestro generously financed the rebuilding, and because of that, the MZ-2017 junkyard looked like an apocalyptic universe's horrific version of a carnival.

Lady Marvel stood in front of the team as they surveyed the yard. Busted boardwalk supports lay tangled on the sidelines, and up ahead was a massive pile-up of the remains of booths, rides, and other pier things, ranging from completely destroyed to only slightly dented. A giant clown head with a gaping mouth sat next to cracked funhouse mirrors that lined up too well: the crews that brought this stuff here definitely had fun positioning it. Lady Marvel knew there was a framework of a warehouse building underneath it all, as evident by the doors and the deceptively good structural integrity of a bunch of trash, and if the outside looked this...interesting, then she could only imagine what lay behind the doors.

The New Humans were inside. She heard them cheering and shouting at each other, interrupted by sharp bangs of sound. They could be setting off firecrackers or firing guns. Knowing them, either was equally plausible.

"I don't get it," Flamethrower said, breaking the silence that had settled since leaving headquarters. "I mean, sure, they hate us and would love a fight, but their powers are so weak."

"Not when they're hopped up on super-steroid," Lady Marvel said.

Flamethrower's face scrunched up in surprise. "Still," she mumbled. "The steroid can only do so much. They won't win, and they've got to know that!"

Lady Marvel shook her head, mad she hadn't made the connection sooner. She'd known that some of the New Humans were up to something, and she knew about the rumors of a circulating super-steroid, but she'd never entertained the idea that those two things were related. She understood now that David took the vial Vidya had stolen in the name of evidence, and he'd reproduced the formula and enticed the New Humans with it by promising a fight. They already hated the Marvels with a psychopathic passion: a confrontation like this, no matter the risk, was their dream come true.

"Alright," Lady Marvel said. "Try not to kill anyone."

"It's the New Humans," Echo replied. "They're not going to give us much of a choice."

Would you be able to deal with that much blood on your hands?

Lady Marvel closed her eyes. Opened them. "Try anyway," she said flatly.

She and Phase went in first, going through a wall—and through the clown head in front of it—instead of the doors to catch them off guard. Together they took out as many of the few guns as they could so the other three were less likely to get shot, and within seconds, Lady Marvel nodded at Phase so he would tell the others to come on in.

And then, ladies and gentlemen, for the very first time as a team, the Marvels fought the New Humans.

It was chaotic. Flamethrower was right, the New Humans had no chance of winning, but they did have numbers, sheer will, no restraints on physical violence, and the most random powers. A guy with detachable arms—they weren't prosthetics, they were literally his arms—was throwing and swinging them around with incredible accuracy. A woman with electric capabilities was pulsing the old fair lights that were draped around, casting the whole shitshow in a changing neon glow. There was even a teleporter, but after a few seconds of watching him travel, it was clear that his range was only a few feet.

As she fought, Lady Marvel's eyes snaked up the staircase that led to an upper level. She'd looked for David the moment she walked in, but he wasn't here then and he still hadn't shown up. He was either on that upper level, or he wasn't at the junkyard at all. Only one way to find out.

Lady Marvel made her way to the staircase, unflinching as she threw aside any New Human that got in her way. They stopped coming after the first few steps; they might have given up on her, or she'd already cleared the area, but she didn't care enough to look over her shoulder and check.

The upper level was an empty, flat surface, huge and open with no ceilings or walls. Lady Marvel rose from the steps and was exposed to a grand, dark twilight sky. A news helicopter circled above; it was way too far to catch any audio, but it was close enough to get some low-quality footage. Fox must be making dozens of calls to try and get that thing out of the sky, to keep it from seeing Celestro's actions before there was a chance to polish and package them.

David was all the way across the level, sitting on a box in the middle of a compact line of what few debris had been left up here and pushed to the edge. Behind him was the closest thing to a wall this area had: an enormous steel board that had once been a mural attached to a building in Santa Monica. It displayed postcard-style art of the county, the paint chipped and dirty. It felt symbolic, to see that decaying steel mural towering behind David as he waited patiently on a box like it was a throne.

Lady Marvel got off the stairs, took two steps forward, and stopped. They watched each other from opposite ends, a huge space between them that neither tried to close. She tuned out the muffled sounds of the fighting below and wondered how things had come to this. David had fit in with the team perfectly when he joined: he was just as vicious, just as apathetic as them, so typical that she thought nothing of it. She didn't know what he'd done that was bad enough to make Celestro exile him, but she wished she'd paid more attention back then. There must've been warning signs.

"Well?" he asked after the long silence. "What are you waiting for? You never struck me as the kind of hero who stupidly waits around for the villain to monologue."

"I'm not," Lady Marvel said calmly. "But you're not the kind of villain who would sit around gloating about his grand plans if he weren't one-hundred percent sure they would work, even in the event of his defeat, so you may as well tell me what your stupid ego has done now."

"Stupid?" David repeated. He stood up with an indignant blink, asking, "How am I stupid, Lady Marvel? Look at what I've done. I killed Juggernaut. I turned one of your own against you—none of this would've been possible without Frostbite's generous help!"

It was impressive, what he'd managed. Impressive and infuriating. Lady Marvel regarded him with disgust. "Why did you do all this?"

"The murders? For revenge. Sending you that video?" He smiled. "That was to rock the boat, cause some distrust. And this, right here, with the New Humans? I thought it was long overdue for a truly chaotic challenge...and I wanted an opportunity to talk."

"To me? Why?"

David smiled again. "You are now the head superhero of the world, aren't you?"

"I am," Lady Marvel said tightly. "Thanks to you."

"Exactly. You're the best person to say this to." He spread his hands at the scene, shrugging. "I've accomplished everything I set out to do, which means it's time for me to say goodbye and disappear, but I'd like to leave you with a warning." He lost the smugness and the self-importance and slipped into something colder. "If you come after me, I'll initiate Plan B. And if you kill me, my heartbeat-dependent timer will start Plan B."

Lady Marvel narrowed her eyes. "And what," she asked, "is Plan B?"

"Something violent," he said casually. "And although I'm sure you and your friends will be able to stop it eventually, the only person who could stop it before it destroys part of the city is Juggernaut, and, well, he's dead. So I really don't think you want to start Plan B."

Lady Marvel went still. She'd expected him to have a trick up his sleeve, but not something like this. He had to be telling the truth: David wouldn't do all this grand damage and then depend only on a lie for his escape. And even if it was a lie, there was no way of knowing, not right at this crucial moment. So where did that leave it? She remained unmoving, trying to give no indication that she was slowly realizing that it might actually have to play out the way he wanted.

This couldn't be happening.

After all those murders and the problems they caused, after all the fighting and backstabbing and public trouble, was it really going to end with David getting away? With her letting him go?

Lady Marvel wanted to throttle him, but she restrained herself. They would figure this out, they would find a way to get him...later. Right now, she didn't have a choice.

A few seconds passed in frozen silence. Lady Marvel watched him with a cold glare but did nothing else, and he got the message.

"Good." David sighed and admired the sky as if he was finally done with some weightful job rather than a murderous revenge campaign. "I'm glad. And I'm looking forward to seeing how you cover this up on the news—"

"Will you shut up?"

Both their heads snapped up at the third voice. Juggernaut was standing on top of the looming metal board, looking very much not dead. David's face drained of color, and Lady Marvel would've found it funny if she weren't just as paralyzed by surprise as him.

"The...the kill switch," David stuttered. "How—"

"That switch was made and implanted when I was eleven," Juggernaut said. "Did you really think it would work on me now?"

Lady Marvel blinked. Kill switch? Leave it to Fox to hide the details.

David was shaking his head, still trying to put out a coherent sentence. Lady Marvel didn't know what he could possibly say, but it didn't matter. Before he could get another word out, Juggernaut was pushing the board down.

The supports holding it up snapped, and the entire steel mural pitched forward, right onto David, and fell flat on the level with a resounding thud that vibrated through the building. The top edge landed only inches in front of Lady Marvel, and the board covered almost the entire space; she couldn't even guess which part of it David had been crushed under.

Juggernaut flew down and stood next to her, wearing the same suspiciously blank look she had. She dug the tip of her boot under the edge of the metal, wondering if they should lift it up and check if David was dead, but the ground started shaking. A few panicked, faraway shouts echoed from beyond the limits of the yard, and an ear-splitting noise pierced the air. It had to be the start of Plan B, which meant David was dead.

"That little..." Juggernaut sucked in an annoyed breath. "He pulled a dead man's switch, didn't he?"

Lady Marvel nodded.

There was a flash of light where the shouts had come from. A long, buzzing pulse made it sound like something was about to explode. Lady Marvel squinted to see clearer as a faraway shed broke apart, the wood splintering in half. From it burst out a creamy-colored blob, and she stopped needing to squint as it kept growing into what turned out to be a maggot.

A giant maggot.

Again.

Lady Marvel and Juggernaut stared at it, eyes wide, as it grew until it reached the size of the one from three years ago. Cars were crushed out of the way, starting a chorus of honks, and roads cracked under the weight. The back end of the maggot grew into an ocean inlet and splashed around, while the pincers on the front end clicked together. The maggot writhed in place as it got used to its new size, and then it squirmed forward, slowly crawling out of the junkyard area it was in and heading for the city buildings.

Evidently, the theft of Dr. Magnum's equipment was also David's doing.

Lady Marvel took a few steps back. "I can go ask the standby team for some explosives," she suggested, pointing over her shoulder.

She waited for affirmation, but Juggernaut stayed where he was, silently watching the maggot. And then he lasered it in half.

Lady Marvel froze, eyes darting up to the helicopter. They definitely caught that on camera.

The pincers twitched, but both halves of the maggot went still, slumping heavily against the roads. Smoke drifted off the burned edges, and chunks of cooked innards slopped onto the ground.

Juggernaut turned halfway to face Lady Marvel, and she almost pointed at the helicopter before deciding she didn't need to. There was no way he didn't already know it was there. She opened her mouth to speak, but he noticed and quickly started talking first.

"He was going to destroy Armogan and create his own supervillain network," Juggernaut said, looking down at the fallen mural. "He wanted to make his mark by increasing the activity of the superhero world and making more people believe in its necessity. Pushing things into instability by mass-murdering an unpredictable syndicate and propping up a controllable one was his ambitious way of kickstarting that. It would've put hundreds of people in danger. I found out about his plans and stopped it before anything happened, but when it came to what to do with him..." Juggernaut rubbed his face tiredly. "Everything I've done, everything that's happened has all been part of Celestro's careful plans. The timelines, the Marvels, the Golden Four, it was all their idea, but bringing David onto the team? That was mine. I thought it would be great to give a chance to someone deserving, and to show people that you don't have to have powers to be a hero. For once in my life, I was genuinely trying to do something right, and when it all went wrong, I couldn't bring myself to do anything definitive with him. So I asked Goodman to relocate him, and then I tried to move on."

Juggernaut finally turned all the way toward her. "There," he said with a soft laugh. "Does that answer all your questions?"

Lady Marvel tilted her head, brows furrowed. "I wasn't going to ask any of that."

He blinked. "No?"

"No." She shook her head. "I was just going to say that I'm glad you're not dead."

Juggernaut blinked again. Then he smiled. Lady Marvel smiled back. None of it was ideal—not the New Humans or what David had done or the temporary death or her brief stint as leader, and there was a lot of damage control on the way, but Lady Marvel still managed to feel grateful. She would've missed him too much.

"Come on," she said, heading for the stairs. "We have people to surprise."

_____________

It was over.

For everyone else.

For Vidya, who stood at the edge of the yard, her back to everyone as they took care of the aftermath, things were still complicated.

She stood with her eyes glued to the ground, absorbing everything that happened. The giant maggot didn't even matter: Juggernaut was alive, and that was the most important thing to her. It was a welcome shock and helped relieve some guilt, but not all of it. Nothing would ever relieve all of it. He might not have stayed dead, but she'd flipped that switch with the full intention of killing him permanently, and...Vidya just didn't know what to do with that awful truth.

Her heart was thudding, close to bursting. She was terrified of what they were going to do with her. Celestro had grounds to prosecute her and throw her in jail for decades, or, if they were super angry and wanted to end things right here, right now, and get rid of her for good...Vidya swallowed. Would they do that?

Yeah. They would.

So she stood alone, arms crossed tightly, too scared to talk to anyone.

Eventually, Fox came and stood in front of her. Vidya was barely able to meet her eyes; this woman had once gleefully told her she was special, and now she looked like she wished nothing more than to never have met her.

The silence was excruciating, but Vidya was too scared to break it. She simply waited.

"You are going to go home," Fox said very quietly, very coldly, "and you are going to write a very sweet, very innocent resignation letter, and I want it on my desk by seven am tomorrow morning and not even a second later."

Vidya stared at her. "I...what?"

"It's bad enough that you have a horrible sense of judgment and the naiveté of a duckling, don't tell me you've got hearing problems on top of that."

"No, I—" Vidya blinked. "I just don't underst—"

"I've given you my directions," Fox interrupted. "Follow them. More will come."

Vidya tried to ask again, but Fox was already walking away. Vidya didn't dare follow her with her eyes in fear that she might accidentally make eye contact with someone else, so she turned back around to face the emptiness in front of her.

And as instructed, she flew home.